This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
I’m getting behind
…
Not only does the reality of life get in the way of writing, but so do plot holes, and I guess this is why, in this sort of writing situation, it doesn’t pay to go back and read over some of what’s written unless you have to, which now I do.
I have.
And now wish I hadn’t. It’s a point where I feel like I’m getting bogged down.
The purpose of the exercise is to move forward, and I’m trying to, but the fact is, my subconscious was working overnight and pointed out a problem.
Why couldn’t I just wake up and imagine I was a No 1 bestselling author?
I tried to leave it alone, but it wasn’t going to happen. I had to fix it before going on.
It added a few hundred words, so now it’s back to burning the midnight oil yet again so that this part reads the way its supposed to.
I knew there was a reason why I didn’t like editing!
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
…
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, I came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down on her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, and sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed like the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it was something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, which was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use-by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. In the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by a slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, but they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in the new job, the last thing she want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, threw out everything she didn’t want, a few trips to the op shop with stuff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me were a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of planes departing, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just to see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
Everyone loves a drink, and that interesting expression, ‘what’s your poison’ often resonates at a bar when among friends.
The thing is, we are supposed to know what our friends drink, me, for instance, I like beer, preferably in a bottle and not local mass-produced brew if I can avoid it.
But, some like white wine, no preference to type, some like cocktails like a Manhattan, or a Long Island Iced Tea, very dangerous if made correctly which quite often it isn’t, or champagne, the real thing not just leftover wine carbonated and given a name like ‘sparkling …’ something.
Every now and then we need to have more than one drink, and that desire is fuelled by our emotions. A celebration, it’s two or three, just enough to allow the euphoria to seep in. A tragedy of any sort means more than a few, usually prefixed with a statement like, ‘I need to get hammered’, but not literally.
Perhaps that’s why it’s called drowning our sorrows.
Of course, there are other meanings for the word ‘drink’ and often poets, and romance novelists will refer to a phrase such as ‘drink in…’ where it may refer to a loving gaze or a look of adulation. You could also, at a stretch, drink in the sight of a magnificent landscape.
Then, at the end of that drinking session, good or bad, where you may have had the opportunity to drink in looks or locations, you might, if you didn’t play your cards right, get thrown in the drink.
Not in the glass, that’s a bit small, but it means a much larger body of water such as a pool, a lake, or the ocean.
And lastly, but probably not the only context for the word ‘drink’, it could be said you were ‘driven to drink’, and I don’t mean by another drinker to the hotel, bar, restaurant or party.
Driven to drink means you blame someone else for your recently acquired desire to drink as much as you can so that it blots out something or someone.
I’m officially blaming my dog for my drinking problem. He drove me to drink.
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
I was going to say ‘Captain’s log supplemental’ and add a stardate, but the analogy might get lost because not everyone is a Star Trekker.
Needless to say, there’s always more to say about an event, especially when the mind is casting about for ideas to add or enhance a story.
It comes down to, does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? It’s an interesting question because, in this instance, art will be imitating, to a certain extent, life.
Perhaps what is lost in the telling is the inability of newly divorced people in working out where the boundaries are, whether or not they are entitled to know about the other person’s private life, and how that will make them feel.
I’m guessing when a marriage breaks down, there’s always a cause, and while the word amicable gets bandied around a lot, it’s said, but quite often not meant.
Does mummy have a boyfriend?
Does daddy have a girlfriend?
What generally happens is the children are the only ones who know what’s really happening to each of the parents, because they get transported between the two, as neither parent would want to be seen stopping the other from seeing them/
Of course, where the children are grown up and leading their own lives, the situation should be a lot easier.
But, where does this fit in with the story I hear you asking.
Marriages fall apart for many reasons. In the story, Bill acknowledges that it is largely his fault, and one suspects it’s probably an undiagnosed case of PTSD that back in the sixties and seventies was not really understood.
It led to both he and Ellen leading individual but separate lives whilst keeping up appearances for the sake of their children. There’s no doubting who brought them up, Ellen, and who had the greater influence over them, although, for the sake of this story, both couldn’t wait to leave home and live somewhere else.
They do, and together. They are not married and do not have children. They were not the cause of the breakup, and fortunately, neither of the girls blame one or the other parent.
But that doesn’t mean, over the years, that either parent hasn’t tried to use them to glean information about the other. It is how Bill discovered, some time ago, that Ellen had ‘a special friend’.
Yet, neither of the daughters have seen him, and not surprisingly, he had made sure that Bill has never seen him. It’s for a particular reason, one that will become obvious later in the story. It is, I think, a rather clever twist.
Also, Ellen is not a bad person and certainly wasn’t bad to Bill, perhaps more long-suffering. She did stay with him for a long time, mainly for the children, but also because she genuinely cared for Bill.
And Bill had not had another woman friend, not until he discovers his feelings towards Jennifer and even then, he keeps that to himself, even when he really doesn’t have to.
I was told a long time ago I wasn’t perfect, and it didn’t bother me. Then.
But it’s true. I don’t always get it right, sometimes I get annoyed and say things in the heat of the moment that perhaps shouldn’t be said, and sometimes I can be ‘difficult’.
I’ll be the first in line to say my blog isn’t perfect, in fact sometimes it bothers me some of the bits and pieces that go up because I doubt if they’re interesting, at the time, to anyone but me.
Perhaps it’s because I chose to be a writer.
It’s a hard slog at the best of times. Getting ideas, carving out time to write, having to live a normal life as distinct from that of living in a garret, on your own, writing that next great Nobel prize for literature, or is it a Pulitzer?
I don’t get that, I don’t have that, and I don’t want that.
For those of us living on that ‘edge’ of finding time to write, maintain a blog, keep up with social media, do the daily chores and watch some television, something has to give.
So, I’m not getting any writing done if I’m working on the blog, or I’m on social media. If I’m doing the blog, something else has to be sacrificed.
Mostly it’s my blog. My blog is about writing stuff, visiting places that have been or will be used in stories, and once, a recalcitrant cat who sadly has passed on. It also has running episodic stories, usually four different at a time.
It also had about 2,000 past posts. When I don’t get the time to do my blog, which has been mostly for the last three months off and on, I sometimes repackage or repeat past posts, just to keep it ticking over, much like a scoreboard.
It is also a tool for advertising my books and stories, and what’s coming (if only I stopped using social media) and these are repeated every four or five days. It’d the equivalent of advertising because I can’t afford other advertising. If this is an annoyance, I’m sorry.
And just so everyone knows, I will always keep writing, not because I want to become the next James Patterson, though it would be nice, I write because I want to, and it pleases me when someone reads something I write, and they like it. It is the greatest compliment of all, and I believe in encouragement. It’s why I spend a lot of that social media time highlighting other writers so they can build a following.
After all, we are all in the same boat, it would just be nice if we were all rowing in the same direction.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
——
Johannesen went to find Wallace. He had seen Jackerby leave the castle alone, which couldn’t be a good thing. He had also noticed most of the Resistance members had gone too and had considered going back to the dungeons,
If he had been picking team members, Jackerby would not have been one of them. He might act British and speak perfect British English, but he was a Nazi at heart, perhaps more Nazi than the Nazis’
It was not unsurprising. The file Wallace had on him along with one for all of them, wasn’t exactly describing a life of roses. His grandparents were German, and the British had killed them during the first world war. There was no doubting he had based his whole life on one day avenging them, and this war had given him the opportunity.
To be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Johannesen guessed that was an apt description of him. He was a devoted follower of Mosley and the English Fascists, openly supporting Hitler until it came to choosing a side. That was easy, become part of a fifth column, Worthing from within.
And when the Reich became the all-powerful country when they won the war, there would be a position for him, a war hero.
Losing the war hadn’t figured in the story, but despite the successes, there were more failures, and tactical errors, like trying to invade Russia, and he could see that it was going to be the reason Germany lost. Superior weapons were not going to staunch the losses, and it was only a matter of time.
The time he would use to figure out how not to get shot as a spy and somehow get back on the other side.
But, not today.
Wallace was trying a new wine, have the same thirst for wine, but not as swill as those Resistance members like Leonardo, a deep-colored red.
“You should try a glass, Johannes. It’s an exceptional vintage.” He picked up the bottle and looked at the label, then cleaning the dust off the label, said, “1907 no less. Bastards never sold any of this to us to try. We should liberate the cellar, and share it with our compatriots after the war. At a price, of course.”
Like all the soldiers he’d met along the way, always looking to make a profit. Goering and Hitler steal all the paintings, they were talking about the wine. What did the people finish up with?
“Not really a red man, sir.”
“That’s because you’ve never had one like this.”
“Why not.”
Wallace poured him a glass.
Johannesen sipped it. Wallace was right, it was better than any other he had tasted, not that he could really remember the last time he had the opportunity.
“It is quite good, sir.”
“It is. You know Jackerby says you are a double agent, which is pretty rich coming from him. Strictly speaking, if wouldn’t be a double agent, but a triple agent, if that was the case. You’re not, are you?”
The smile on Wallace’s face didn’t extend to the eyes. He was not amused, or annoyed.
Just fishing.
“That’s the problem with our situation. We’ve been lying to everyone for so long, that it’s hard t tell what is the truth and what isn’t. At the moment, the British don’t know where my allegiances lie, they think I’m the sleeper in this group, and Atherton, well, he’s not sure if that’s the case or not. No doubt Jackerby told you about my trip to the dungeons to get the woman to talk. Jackerby offers the big stick and that isn’t going to work on these people. She’ll die before she gives up any secrets. They all will. And by all accounts that breute Leonardo was executing her compatriots in front of her to make her talk, and all they are is dead, and we’re no closer to anything. What do you think I am?”
“Clever. But that isn’t going to be my problem in,” he looked at his watch, “two hours. We have a new commander, and a few more people arriving to weed out this elusive Atherton and the few resistance that’s left. People higher than me want Meyer returned to Germany. Whatever you are, Johannesen, you might have to plead your case to someone else far less understanding.” He stood. “Enjoy the wine. It might be your last.”
Reading between the lines, Johannesen got the impression Wallace no longer cared what happened. For all of them, it had been a long war, and it was dragging on with no success in sight.
And it was becoming abundantly clear he picked the wrong side. Now, all that was going to happen was that he would end up in the crossfire. Perhaps he had known all along that the German notion that no one could ever be trusted, that everyone should be treated as a traitor first, was going to be the death of all of them.
He had no doubt the new arrivals would be Waffen SS, battle-hardened, and sent on this mission as a sort of holiday. They would find Atherton and the remnants very quickly and snuff out a problem Jackerby couldn’t.
Or, if Jackerby knew the Waffen SS was coming, had he left, knowing his loyalties would be called into question. Pure German soldiers versus double agents, Johannesen knew who’d he believe first.
For the first time, Johannesen knew he was not going to see the end of this war, or that Germany had any hope of winning.
He needed a plan of escape, and that woman in the dungeons was the only one who could help him.
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
I’m getting behind
…
Not only does the reality of life get in the way of writing, but so do plot holes, and I guess this is why, in this sort of writing situation, it doesn’t pay to go back and read over some of what’s written unless you have to, which now I do.
I have.
And now wish I hadn’t. It’s a point where I feel like I’m getting bogged down.
The purpose of the exercise is to move forward, and I’m trying to, but the fact is, my subconscious was working overnight and pointed out a problem.
Why couldn’t I just wake up and imagine I was a No 1 bestselling author?
I tried to leave it alone, but it wasn’t going to happen. I had to fix it before going on.
It added a few hundred words, so now it’s back to burning the midnight oil yet again so that this part reads the way its supposed to.
I knew there was a reason why I didn’t like editing!
The first stop is at a Jade Museum to learn the history of jade. In Chinese, jade is pronounced as “Yu” and it has a history in China of at least four thousand years. On the way there, we are given a story about one of the guide’s relatives who had a jade bracelet, and how it saved her from countless catastrophes. It is, quite literally ‘the’ good luck charm. Chinese gamblers are known to have small pieces of jade in their hands when visiting the casinos, for good luck. I’m not sure anything could provide a gambler with any sort of luck given how the odds are always slanted towards the house.
At any rate, this is neither the time of the place to debunk a ‘well-known fact’.
On arrival, our guide hands us over to a local guide, a real staff member, and she begins with a discussion on jade while we watch a single worker working on an intricate piece, what looks to be a globe within a globe, sorry, there are two workers, and the second is working on a dragon.
At the end of the passage that passes by the workers, and before you enter the main showroom, you are dazzled by the ship and is nothing short of magnificent.
Then it’s into a small room just off the main showroom where we are taken through the colors, and the carving process in the various stages, without really being told how the magic happens.
Then it’s out into the main showroom where the sales are made, and before dispersing to look at the jade collection, she briefly tells us how to tell real and fake jade, and she does the usual trick of getting one of the tour group to model a piece.
Looks good, let’s move on. To bigger and better examples.
What interested me, other than the small zodiac signs and other smallish pieces on the ‘promotion’ table, was the jade bangle our tour guide told us about on the bus. If anyone needs one, it is my other half, with all the medical issues and her sometimes clumsiness, two particular maladies this object is supposed to prevent. Jade to the Chinese is Diamonds to westerners, and the jade bangle is often handed down to the females of the family from generation to generation, often as an engagement present, to be worn on the left hand, the one closest to the heart.
There are literally thousands of them, but, they have to be specially fitted to your wrist because if it’s too large, you might lose it if it slips off and I didn’t think it could be too small. Nor is it cheap, and needing a larger size, it is reasonably expensive. But it is jadeite, the more expensive of the types of jade, and it can only appreciate in value, not that we are interested in the monetary value, it’s more the good luck aspect.
We could use some of that.
But, just to touch on something that can be the bugbear of traveling overseas, is the subject of happy houses, a better name for toilets, and has become a recurrent theme on this tour. It’s better than blurting out the word toilet and it seems there can be some not so happy houses given that the toilets in China are usually squat rather than sit, even for women. And apparently, everyone has an unhappy house story, particularly the women, and generally in having to squat over a pit. Why is this a discussion point, it seems the jade factory had what we have come to call happy, happy houses which have more proper toilets, and a stop here before going on the great wall was recommended, as the ‘happy house’ at the wall is deemed to be not such a happy house.
Not even this dragon was within my price range. Thank heaven they had smaller more affordable models. The object of having a dragon, large or small, is that it should be placed inside the main door to the house so that money can come in.
It also seems that stuffing the dragon’s mouth with money is also good luck. We passed on doing that.
After spending a small fortune, there was a bonus, free Chinese tea. Apparently, we will be coming back, after the Great Wall visit, to have lunch upstairs.
It has any number of names, from Leave of Absence to Vacation, but it is meant to be a time where you can rest and relax.
And by the time you finally get to go away, preferably somewhere as far from home as possible, you are sure ready for it.
Those long days at the office, the decisions, the deadlines, the endless pressure of having to achieve the impossible all melt away when you walk out the door, and what a feeling it is when you tell everyone, ‘I’m off on holidays, see you when I get back.’
As anyone will tell you, it’s not wise to travel the next day if at all possible, because you need some time to decompress before tackling what sometimes can be an arduous getting to the final destination, especially if it is at a peak holiday period, or on planes where anything and everything can go wrong very quickly.
Been there done that.
We traveled the next day, nothing went wrong, and all is fine.
Except …
As a writer and having spent the last few months finishing off my last novel, I was looking forward to some down time. The editor has the final draft, and I’m happy.
Then, as it always does, the best laid plans of mice and men …
It all comes unstuck.
Inspiration often comes out of left field; something happens, a piece in a newspaper, an item on TV, or just lying down staring at the ceiling, when ‘bang’ it hits you.
The start of a story, a theme that you can run with.
Damn.
I’ve been away for four days now and written seven chapters and the words will not stop.
